Attorney General’s Office Ends the Silence over the Lies of ‘Breaking the Silence’

Last April’s “testimony” by Dean Issacharoff, spokesperson for the far-left NGO, ‘Breaking the Silence’, has been exposed as fraudulent by the office of Israeli State Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.

The State Attorney’s Office announced Thursday it was closing the assault probe against him “after the investigation revealed the events he described didn’t take place.”

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The investigation was launched in response to Issacharoff’s claims at a rally in April 2017 that as an IDF officer serving in with the Nahal Brigade infantry unit in Hebron, he was ordered by the company commander to handcuff a resident; with his unit watching, he related, he brutally beat up the local Arab man who was passively resisting arrest.

A month after the rally, however, a video was published in which former members of his unit — including his commander — called Issacharoff out as a liar. The video was produced by “Reservists on Duty,” a group dedicated to exposing the truth and lies of Breaking the Silence.

Soon after, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called for an investigation into Issacharoff’s claims, noting that he had publicly admitted to having “committed a crime against a Palestinian and pounded him with blows. If that is really what happened, he should be investigated and punished. If it didn’t happen, the state needs to officially declare that it didn’t happen.”

By the end of the summer, the alleged victim of the beating had been tracked down in Hebron. In September Israeli officials questioned the man Issacharoff said he attacked. And while Hassan Julani confirmed that he was, in fact, arrested by the IDF in February 2014 — as Issacharoff claimed — Julani insisted that no violence was involved in the arrest nor was any required in order to bring him in.

In response to the decision announced by the State Attorney’s Office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “Breaking the Silence lies and slanders our soldiers internationally. Today, in case anyone had any doubt, this fact has received further proof. The truth wins.”

Shaked welcomed the decision as well. “It turns out that the Breaking the Silence spokesman is a liar defaming the State of Israel in front of the world,” the Justice Minister said in a statement. “Kudos to [Issacharoff’s] comrades in his company who refused to remain indifferent and were unwilling to remain silent while he lies.”

Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.